Navy Nuclear Engineer arrested for selling Design of Nuclear Power Warships

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The FBI has arrested a Maryland-based Navy nuclear engineer and his wife on charges of selling secret information. They were allegedly involved in selling the design of nuclear power warships to someone they thought was a foreign power but was actually an undercover FBI agent. The US Justice Department claims Jonathan Toebbe, through his Pentagon-issued national security clearance, had access to restricted data about naval nuclear technology and used that access to send a package to a foreign government on 1^st April 2020. The affidavit alleged he started corresponding with someone he believed to be an agent of another country but was an undercover FBI agent. The court documents claimed the Navy engineer agreed to sell this restricted data to the undercover agent for $10,000 in cryptocurrency.

It is noteworthy that Toebbe and his wife, Diana, then allegedly went to West Virginia, where the Navy engineer placed a memory card inside half a peanut butter sandwich, with his wife on the lookout. The Justice Department also said that the card contained restricted data about submarine nuclear reactors. The engineer at one point suspected a trap based on the criminal complaint but continued with more such dead drops. A criminal complaint has indicated that the engineer said, “I am sorry to be so stubborn and untrusting, but I can’t agree to go to a location of your choosing”.

The engineer added, “I must consider the possibility that l am communicating with an adversary who has intercepted my first message and is attempting to expose me”. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the complaint charges a plot to transmit information relating to the design of our nuclear submarines to a foreign nation. Garland said, “The work of the FBI, Department of Justice prosecutors, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Department of Energy was critical in thwarting the plot charged in the complaint and taking this first step in bringing the perpetrators to justice”.